Gender a výzkum / Gender and Research 2016, 17 (1): 53-62 | DOI: 10.13060/12130028.2016.17.1.255

'Pregnancy Exam Schedule' and Risk: Narratives of Women about Pregnancy

Zuzana Pešťanská

'Pregnancy Exam Schedule' and Risk: Narratives of Women about Pregnancy
The paper aims to demonstrate how the techniques of disciplinary power in prenatal care affect pregnant women. I will illustrate my argument using the results of ethnographic research conducted at the Division of Risk Pregnancy at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in a hospital in Central Slovakia. The analysis of ethnographic material indicates that although pregnant women are objectified and disciplined in prenatal care, they consider and evaluate the practices of the medical staff. Prenatal care interferes with other social roles which pregnant women play in their life. I interpret the ethnographic material in terms of the concept of disciplinary power developed by Michel Foucault, and in the terms of the theory of moral emotions by Jonathan Haidt. I argue that risk assessment is a part of the techniques of disciplinary power, and that the explicit ascription of feelings of the uncertainty, fear, guilt, and shame to a certain kind of behaviour in pregnancy helps to identify norms that regulate biological reproduction.

Keywords: disciplinary power, risk, emotion

Published: March 1, 2016  Show citation

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Pešťanská, Zuzana. 2016. "'Pregnancy Exam Schedule' and Risk: Narratives of Women about Pregnancy." Gender, Equal Opportunities, Research 17(1):53-62.
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